This is Going to Kill You
by littlefaerielights
Summary: It was the worst at night. It's always the worst at night. I can make it through the day, but at night, it's like there's a magnet pulling me to the kitchen. Pulling me to the food that I didn't need. The food that would make me fat and disgusting. TW: eating disorder/cutting
1. Help

It was the worst at night. It's always the worst at night. I can make it through the day, but at night, it's like there's a magnet pulling me to the kitchen.

Pulling me to the food that I didn't need. The food that would make me fat and disgusting.

Night binges are the worst. I hate throwing up, but sometimes it's the only way.. So I picked up the blade and lifted up my skirt. I looked at the cut up skin of my leg before slicing into it. I smiled when the blood came. There was a lot of it as I continued to slice and cut at it. I pushed away all the thoughts of chocolate and pasta and peanut butter and pizza and cereal and pancakes as my stomach growled again. One more cut.

Ouch. That one was a little deeper than I thought it would be.

But the pain felt so good, it took away my hunger. I watched the blood as the blood poured over my pale skin and bit my lip to stop the tears from coming.

"Ginny, honey, are you okay?" I heard Hermione's soft voice come from the other side of my door. She sounded so worried. I touched my face. I didn't realize I was crying.

"Yeah, I'm okay." I quickly wrapped my leg up and slipped my leggings on.

"Can I come in?" She asked gently.

"Um, yeah." I waved my wand to unlock the door and she opened it and walked in, closing the door quietly behind her. She sat on the couch across from my bed and looked at the fairy lights on my headboard before looking at me.

"You're bleeding through your leggings, love." She whispered with tears in her eyes. "Can I help?"

"Promise not to tell?" I begged her. She bit her lip, blinking tears back and nodded.

"Just let me help you, okay?" She whispered, bending down in front of me. I slipped my leggings off and Hermione gasped.

"Oh, Ginny…" She unwrapped my leg and stood up. She kissed my forehead. "I'll be right back, sweetheart. I'm just gonna go get some stuff to clean this up, okay?" I nodded and watched her leave. I traced the scars, the words that I've carved into my skin. _Fat. Disgusting. Stop eating. Ugly. Fat. Fat. Fat. Fat. _Hermione came back with a roll of gauze, some medical tape and a small bottle of dittany. She closed the door behind her and kneeled in front of Ginny.

Hermione didn't ask any questions, she just put the dittany on the fresh and bleeding cuts, wrapped her leg with gauze and taped it. And Ginny was very grateful for that. She didn't feel like explaining, even though she knew Hermione would understand.

She noticed how Hermione had been losing weight, more than was healthy in the past couple weeks. And she had hated herself because there was a small part of herself that hated her for it because she had to be the skinniest.

"Ginny?" Hermione whispered when she was done.

"Mmm?"

"Can you promise me something?" She sounded so broken. Ginny nodded. "Can you promise me that when you get this bad, that you'll come get me? I don't care what time it is or I have to stay up all night with you. It doesn't matter what I have to do, just come get me when it gets this bad, okay?"

"Okay." Hermione held out her pinky. "Pinky promise, sissy?"

They linked pinkies. "Thank you."


	2. Purging

Ginny stood up from the dinner table and looked at her plate. It was empty. Luna always made really good food, it was hard not to clear your plate when she cooked. Ginny'd been binging a lot lately and she hated herself for it.

She had to get rid of all the food she ate.

Biting back tears, she walked to the bathroom at the top of the house and locked the door. She looked at the cuts on her knuckles from purging too many times, and she knew her teeth weren't in very good shape either, but she couldn't stop. When she binged, this was the only way to get the unwanted food out of her. She was too fat. Disgusting. She could feel the fat from everything she ate weighing on her, all the calories..

She sat in front of the toilet, lifted up the lid, and grabbed her toothbrush from the sink and leaned over the bowl.

The toothbrush hurt her throat more than her fingers did, but she didn't want to hurt her hands right now.

She stood up, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and flushed the toilet. Body check. There was a scale in the corner and she slowly took her clothes off and looked in the full-length mirror hanging behind the door. She was _disgusting_. _Fat. _There were scars all over her thighs and ribs—you could start see the bones, she had a thigh gap.. but there was still so much extra fat and it was disgusting. She stepped on the scale and it read 44 kg. It was a little better than last time, but still too fat. Not what she wanted. She sat down next to the scale and cried. She was _disgusting, fat, ugly. _She wanted to be pretty. She wanted to pretty for Harry when he came home. But she wasn't. She wasn't even close. After about ten minutes of crying, she put her clothes back on and stood up.

Ginny brushed her teeth with the same toothbrush that had purged with and left the bathroom with tears still burning in her eyes.

Ginny's hands were aching for her blades, but Hermione had hid them and put an anti-summoning charm on them and she couldn't find them. So she'd been putting out her cigarettes on her legs instead. It was a different kind of pain, but it was pain nonetheless, and it was soothing. She liked it and it helped, but she missed the blood. The blood reminded her that she was alive. She could always find some more… When she went to her room to grab her pack, Hermione was waiting patiently on her bed.

"What were you doing?" Her voice was quiet, but stern.

Ginny didn't think Hermione had any room to talk, really. She was in Hermione's room last week and found her food journal. It was horrible; she was so mean to herself. Ginny couldn't imagine what it would sound like if Hermione said those awful words out loud. There was blood on some of the pages where the calorie count was too high, but Ginny couldn't find her blades. Hermione was too good at hiding, better than Ginny, or she wouldn't have found out about her. Not to mention Hermione's clothes were far too loose on her tiny frame. If she took them off, Ginny imagined she would easily be able to count her ribs.

"Nothing. Do you want to come out to smoke with me?" Ginny asked, grabbing her pack from her nightstand. Hermione shrugged and nodded.

"Lemme go get mine from my room. I'll meet you outside." She said softly.

It was difficult, living in this house without the boys. They'd been gone for a couple weeks, doing god knows what, and the girls were stuck here. Hermione and Ginny were falling apart. It wasn't because they were gone, it was just.. that they were falling apart. And Ginny didn't know how to help Hermione because Hermione was too busy helping Ginny and Luna was off in her little world, painting and drawing. Her paintings were hung around the house. Ginny thought her paintings made the world a little more beautiful.

"Hello, Ginny." Luna greeted Ginny happily when she walked outside. She was sitting on the swing Harry had put in the big tree in their front yard. "How are you?"

"I'm okay, Luna." Ginny answered, forcing a smile for her, sitting against the tree. Luna looked at her for a long time. She was beautiful as always; flowers in her hair, pretty little sundress, paint on her hands and arms, no shoes…

Hermione walked out, the front door slamming behind her, walking to sit next to Ginny.

"Took me forever to find the damn thing…" She mumbled, taking one out and lighting it. She took a long drag and smiled at Luna. "You look beautiful, today, love." She pointed at the paint on her arms. "What're you painting?"

"I was painting some flowers I found earlier." Luna grinned at Hermione. Ginny looked at Hermione, she was so beautiful, even though she'd been losing so much weight, and she knew that she was hiding cuts somewhere on her body.. Her long, curly hair was still shining and she was still fighting. Still so sweet. She was strong. Stronger than Ginny ever would be. But she was so good at hiding, and Ginny wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

"Can we see it when you're done painting?" Ginny asked. Luna beamed and nodded.

Luna was so full of life, so happy, so beautiful, so alive, so innocent and sweet. She was so lovely, someone you craved to be around. Ginny couldn't remember the last time she felt that alive.

It was quiet for a couple of minutes, while Ginny and Hermione finished smoking and Luna kept swinging, her long hair blowing in the wind. She looked at the two girls sitting under the tree.

"Are you two alright?" Luna asked, slowing down.

"What? Yes, I'm okay, I'm fine." Ginny's voice was panicked and she spoke before Hermione, who was calm but guarded.

"I'm fine, Luna."

"Really?" Luna got off the swing and sat in front of them. Her voice had lost the dreamy sort of tone that it usually had, and it had gotten serious and stern. Hermione lit another cigarette as she stared at her bare feet in the grass. "Because I'm not stupid. I see what you're doing to yourselves. I've seen the bags with spit up food in them in the rubbish bins. I hear you throwing up late at night, after meals, after everything you put in your mouth. I see you pushing the food around on your plates. I see the cuts on your knuckles from purging too much and I see the cigarette burns on your bodies. I see you counting calories and the pain in your eyes when you push away food. I see the pictures of the skinny girls in your room and the blades in the boxes under your bed. I see you cringe when someone touches your thighs or your ribs or your hips. I see you both falling apart. You're not okay." There were tears in her big blue eyes. "I notice when you don't eat, and I count the days you go without eating. You're my sisters, and you're so fucking beautiful. You're too beautiful to be doing this to yourself. I know it's not as easy as 'just eat something' and 'just stop cutting' I'm not stupid. But you need to get better, my loves, or this is going to kill you."


	3. Cutting

Hermione was sitting on the floor of the bathroom, her clothes folded neatly on top of the sink. It was early, no one would notice how long she was in here. The scale in the corner was mocking her. Screaming words at her, words she couldn't think right now. Words that would destroy her. She stood in front of the mirror on the back of the door and tilted her head to the side at her reflection.

She could count her ribs, easily. Her hipbones stuck out at odd angles. The cuts on her thighs looked awful, and there were bruises from where she would hit herself until it… bruised. There were burns from where she burned herself and cuts on her ribs and stomach. Hermione used to be so beautiful. Tears burned at her eyes. What happened? The sparkle in her eyes was gone, her hands were cut up from sticking them down her throat, and her teeth were a mess, her hair wasn't as thick as it used to be, she hasn't had her period for a while.. But that was just what she could see, she knew she was much more fucked up than that, but she was too scared to go to a doctor to see what else was wrong with her, or even to get a proper diagnosis. She was tired of this, all of this. But she couldn't stop. This was when she told herself she would stop, a long time ago—when she realized she weighed a little too much, she said she'd stop when she was skinny.

Is this skinny enough?

Hermione didn't know anymore, and that was what killed her. She starved herself, and if that got to be too much, she would binge, but that would cause her to purge—but then if she couldn't take either of those, she'd chew and spit. And then what about all the pills she popped? The pain pills, the laxatives, the diet pills. The cutting, the bruising, the burning, the smoking… She got up every morning at 5am to run a couple miles. Hermione was killing herself and she knew it, but she couldn't stop and she didn't know if she wanted to. But if she didn't, that would kill her little family. Ginny, Luna, Harry, Ron, Draco.. _Draco_. Maybe she wouldn't have gotten this bad if they didn't leave. He knew how bad she was, she begged him to stay, but he had to go with them… But Hermione knew it would kill Ginny the most.

She started the shower and found the blade that she brought with her from her room. The shower was her favorite place to cut. She stepped in and her fresh cuts from last night stung. She bit her lip at the pain.

"But you deserve the pain, Hermione. You deserve it." She whispered. She sat on the floor of the shower and started carving away at her skin. The water ran red and she smiled—this made Hermione feel alive, this is the only thing that took away the pain.

She stopped and stood up, blood still running down her leg, and began to wash her hair. It was calming, feeling the pain, seeing the blood drip down and run down the drain… Showers were her favorite.

* * *

It was three in the morning and Hermione was sitting outside, in the tree, chain smoking and looking at the stars. She couldn't sleep again, which was weird, because usually, when she was fasting, all she wanted to do was sleep. Maybe she missed Draco too much. Maybe she was too depressed. Maybe it was both.

"Hermione?" Ginny yelled.

"I'm up here, honey." She looked down, and saw that Ginny was sitting at the base of the tree, looking up. She had been looking a little better some days, then worse the next. Hermione had just been going downhill. She felt like a hypocrite telling her to stop everything she was doing, because she was worse, but she didn't want to see Ginny this sick. Hermione was just better at hiding it.

"Okay, I'm coming up." And Ginny began to climb up the tree to where Hermione was sitting. Hermione didn't notice she had a bag with her. When Ginny got settled on a branch, she hung the bang from another branch and looked at Hermione.

"I brought firewhiskey, water.. and a carton of cigarettes." She offered a weak smile. Hermione reached for the firewhiskey bottle and opened it.

"What's up, baby girl?" she asked, taking a swing of alcohol.

"I saw some blood in the shower this morning." Ginny looked at her hands. "And I saw your food journal a couple weeks ago… Sissy, how bad are you?" Her eyes were shining with tears when she looked up at Hermione again.

"I'm okay, lovey." Hermione took Ginny's hand in hers, and stared at her evenly. "I'm okay. I'm fine. Don't worry about me, sweetheart. Worry about you, okay? You work on getting better. I promise I'm fine."

"No, don't you fucking lie to me, Hermione." She tore her hand away. "You're not fucking fine, and you know it." She took a deep breath. "How much do you weigh?"

"39 kg."

"And you say you're _fine_? That's not fine, Hermione!" Ginny yelled.

"You're not doing so good yourself, Ginny." Hermione sighed.

"No, but I don't weigh that little."

"But you want to, don't you?" She challenged. Ginny opened her mouth, but didn't say anything. "I know how it is, baby girl. I know. It's always 'I'll stop when I'm skinny' but don't you think _this_ is skinny?" Hermione lifted up her shirt. "This isn't skinny enough for me. You can fucking count my ribs, and it's still not skinny enough." She was quiet for a moment. "The scale could read 0 and I still wouldn't be happy."

"Oh, Hermione…"

"I know I'm killing myself, Ginny, I know I am." She opened up her pack and lit a cigarette. "But I can't stop. I can't stop any of this. I'm out of control and it's killing me. I'm drowning, baby girl, and I think it's too late for me to come up for air." She took a swig of firewhiskey and looked at Ginny with tear filled eyes. "I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault, sissy." Ginny whispered. "It's not your fault."

"The worst part is, I don't know if I want to get better." Hermione whispered. "I don't think I do. I know it's killing me, and I still don't know if I want to get better or not." She laughed bitterly. "What happened to the Hermione in school, the one that was logical and stuff? What happened to her? I need her now."

"I know, baby doll. I know."

Hermione drank half of the bottle in one swing, and Ginny watched her sadly.


End file.
